[/quote]Originally Posted by vox05
That's not what we're saying. Obviously, a beginner should try to pronounce the words as closely as possible to native speech, however, the vast majority won't be able to, so it's a question of managing the deficiency for the sake of being understood. Recommending that a beginner articulate the individual sounds of a word in a way that might sound unnatural to native speakers is sometimes the quickest and best way of teaching that student to speak intelligibly.
It's a little funny when the native speakers are debating over whether it should be 'zna-it-i' or 'zna-it-e', when the typical beginner is going to pronounce either one as знайты.